Judge Gives Arkansas Two Weeks To Respond In Planned Parenthood Suit

Hutchinson cut ties with the organization after an anti-abortion group, the Center for Medical Progress, released edited clips of conversations with Planned Parenthood employees in other states discussing money the organization would receive to reimburse it for providing fetal parts for medical research.

In September, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the order from going into effect.

The judge also asked Faircloth for specific examples of alleged misrepresentations Planned Parenthood allegedly made to the state and cited by the health department in a letter on the planned funding cutoff.

“The governor sent a message to the community that Planned Parenthood is a criminal and deserves to be punished”, she told U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups. “(It) is not the will of the people”.

She noted that Rudofsky failed to explain the necessity for conducting further inquiry before she decides the class-action question, and has already “explored in detail in written discovery” the women’s use of Planned Parenthood services and their use of other providers.

“Those services have nothing to do with abortion or abortion related services”, Tomsic argued.

That’s unconstitutional, Tomsic argued, because the group has a First Amendment right to advocate for abortion rights and associate with its national partner to advocate for and provide those rights.

“I am perplexed”, she said, according to KBIA.

“Their arguments ignore reality”, she said.

Gary Herbert had ordered a stop to $275,000 in federal grant money in an August 14 directive, spurring the September 28 suit by the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.

After Herbert announced he was blocking the funds, Robert Rolfs, the deputy director of the health department, said in an email to Herbert’s chief of staff and legal counsel that he was concerned Utah could not block Planned Parenthood from applying for state contracts. The state earlier said it would keep the funding in place through the end of the year.

When Waddoups asked him about claims the governor was motivated to end the funding because of the controversial video Green didn’t dispute it. Those costs were nominal enough that Planned Parenthood probably could, and should, have covered them with donations. “The governor did this in response to the videos”.